In the following year, the great schism that had
been dimly foretold, broke out, and for forty years the
church was divided between two heads ; Urban VI.
was elected at Rome, under the influence of terror
at the violence of the insurgent mob ; and soon after,
in subservience to the French party, Clement VII.
et Fondi, who immediately hastened to Avignon.
When these tidings reached the " Friends of God,'*
it seemed to them that the time was come when the
threatened judgments of God were about to burst
over the world. It was, indeed, intelligence fitted
to shake all hearts, for, as the brethren of Gruenen
FORTY YEARS SCHISM 187
Worth write : " After God has been warning the
world for these forty years past, by deadly diseases
and earthquakes, famines, and a wild, masterless
folk,* laying waste many lands, He is now sending
us a plague that is worse than all the rest, because
it attacks our faith ; namely, the dissensions of
Christendom, in which all the wisdom of nature,
of Scripture, and of the grace of the Holy Spirit
is so utterly dried up and extinct, that all our
learned doctors and wise priests have lost their way,
and know not which to choose of these two Popes,
that they may help to bring back unity to Christendom,
and peace to the See of Rome." Their Master wished in
this perplexity to repair for counsel to the " Friends of God,"
but Nicolas forbade him,
saying : " Have you not the Holy Scripture ? Are
you not a professor in the chair ? Why should you
ask counsel from the creature ? Stop, and wait
till God Himself shall constrain you to come to us.
It is not yet time for us to reveal ourselves ; but it
may soon come to pass that we shp from our covert,
to be scattered abroad over the world, and if so, I
shall come to Straisburg and make myself known to
you."
It is, however, evident that the " Friends of God,"
though concealed, were by no means passive at this
time ; what special plans they cherished are imknown,
but that they had such is dear from all their
proceedings. So early as November 1377, Nicolas
had been with the priest, John, in Metz, on some
business with which we are not acquainted. During
1378, much consultation by means of messengers and
*The hordes known by the name of "Englishmen," who for several
years after 1361 ravaged France, Lorraine, and Alsace.
188 TAULER'S LIFE AND TIMES
letters must have taken place, for on the 17th of
March, in the following year, Nicolas (as he relates
in a letter to Henry von Wolfach), with seven other
brethren, met in some wild place high up among the
mountains, near a chapel hewn out in a rock, close to
which a priest dwelt with two young brethren in a
little hermitage. Four out of the seven were laymen,
the other three ordained priests. Nicolas, whether
from humility or not, speaks of himself as one of the
least among them. From his letter it would seem
that the chief purpose of this meeting was united
prayer to God, to avert the " dreadful storm"
that was menacing the Christian world, that there
might be space left for amendment. A week was
devoted to these supplications ; every afternoon the
brethren went out into the forest, and sat down
" beside a fair brook," to converse upon the matters
on which they had come hither. At length, on the
last day, while thus assembled, a storm of wind came
on, followed by a thick darkness, which they took
for a work of the evil spirits. After the storm had
lasted an hour, there came a pleasant light, and
the sweet voice of an invisible angel announced to
them that God had heard their prayer, and stayed
his chastisements for a year ; but when this was
ended, they should entreat Him no more, for the
Father would no longer delay to take vengeance on
the despisers of His Son. After this the " Friends
of God " returned back again each to his own place.
Respecting the course they resolved to pursue, all
that we can make out from the vague hints in the
letters of Nicolas is, that they interpreted the promise
of the angel to mean that they were to wait a year
longer before quitting their concealment and taking
LAST CONFERENCE 189
an open and active part in the affairs of the world ;
the only thing that is distinctly stated is, that it was
resolved once more to try the effect of personal
remonstrances with the Pope. Nicolas himself was
entrusted with this mission, which, however, from
some unknown cause, was not carried out. Meanwhile,
according to the intelligence received from the
brethren in foreign parts respecting the progress
of the schism, affairs were assuming a more and
more gloomy aspect ; the confusion and perplexity
occasioned by the presence of two Popes was continually
increasing ; the Christian world was splitting
into two parties ; even the secular authority was
in danger of disruption and subversion. The time
drew nearer and nearer when Nicolas believed himself
called on to begin to work among the common
people ; already, in June 1379, he calls on the Strasburg
Master to warn the people in his sermons, and
hold up before them the testimonies of Scripture
concerning their duties in such a crisis.
As the end of the year approached, during which
the " Friends of God " were to wait, they agreed
to hold another meeting. All the accounts relating
to this conference (the latest distinctly recorded
intelligence we have respecting this extraordinary
band of associates), are so mixed up with the symbolical
and the marvellous, that it is extremely
difficult to make out the real facts of the case. According
to the narrative given by Nicolas to Rulman
Merswin, he, with twelve other " Friends of God,"
were at Christmas 1379 warned by dreams to
assemble together on the following Holy Thursday,
at the same place where the seven brethren had met
the year before. So early as February some of the
190 TAULER'S LIFE AND TIMES
foreign brethren arrived at the abode of Nicolas : one
from the country of the " Lords of Meiglon," (probably
Milan) ; two from Hungary, whom he had
known thirty years before ; one from Genoa, a rich
burgher, with whom Nicolas was not previously
acquainted. On Holy Thursday, the 22nd of March,
they met at the little chapel in the rock, and, after
receiving the sacrament on Good Friday morning,
repaired, as before, to the wood, and sat down beside
the stream to begin their deliberations. What
passed during these conferences is only related in the
form of marvellous visions and fantastic occurrences.
After tempests and diabolical apparitions, a bright
light surrounds the place, and an invisible speaker
tells them that the impending plagues shall be
stayed for three years longer, on condition of their
obeying the injunctions contained in a letter which
thereupon drops down in their midst. These commands
are somewhat mysterious : the " Friends of
God " are to withdraw from their ordinary communications
with the world, except in the case of
those who desire their counsel ; to receive the
sacrament three times a week, &c. ; and after three
years they shall receive further commands from
God. After they have declared their readiness to
obey the letter, they are told by the same voice to
light a fire, and throw it in. Instead of burning, it
rises up in the fire, a flash of lightning meets the
flame, and catches up fire and letter together to
heaven, after which there is nothing more to be
seen ; and the brethren depart to their respective
homes. The brethren in the Oberland commence
their period of retreat at Whitsuntide, after a high
mass has been performed by the priest John in their
VISIONS AND MARVELS 191
newly-finished church. Nicolas writes beforehand
to Rulman Merswin releasing him from his obedience,
and recommending him to take the Master Henry von
Wolfach for a confessor in his stead. To the latter,
who had again applied to know what course the
*' Friends of God " meant to take with regard to the
rival Popes, Nicolas replies with his usual caution,
that the Brethren of St. John could not regulate
their conduct in these matters by that of the " Friends
of God ;
" for they were bound to obey the dictates
of their superiors in the Order, while the latter had
received many privileges from Pope Gregory, and
were, moreover, only subject to their Bishop, who
did not press them for a decision.
It is certainly very difficult to know in what light
to regard the marvellous accounts that meet us in
the writings of Rulman and Nicolas. Some of them
seem to be simply symbolical ; for it is clear that they
were in the habit of presenting their views of human
affairs under the form of an allegory, supposed to be
seen in a vision or dream, just as Bunyan does in
his " Pilgrim's Progress." This is the case with
Rulman's Book of the Nine Rocks, Christiana
Ebner's vision of the Closed Cathedral, and some
unimportant visions occurring in the letters of
Nicolas.* But the case is different when wonders
are related, as far as we can see, as simple matters
of fact. That, however, the " Friends of God " expected,
and so were ready to receive without much
hesitation as to their reality, not only direct spiritual
communications from the Divine Being, but also
miraculous interpositions in physical things, is per-
• See, for instance, his vision of the Three Birds. (Schmidt's
Cottesfreundc-, S. 147.)
192 TAULER'S LIFE AND TIMES
fectly clear ; and thus they were undoubtedly open
to all the self-deception in these matters which may
arise from intense emotion and mental excitement
acting on frames disordered by asceticism. Swoons
under the pressure of religious emotion are with them,
as with the Methodists of the last century, a matter
of continual occurrence ; and with them, as with
the early Methodists, seem to have been not unfrequently
the crisis of a state of overwrought
physical and mental excitement, after which they
regained a calmer and healthier condition both of
body and mind, with an addition of spiritual experience
and enlightenment. Such an occurrence as
a letter falling from heaven presents much greater
difficulties. It is possible that Nicolas may have
intended the whole story rather as an allegory than
as matter of fact ; if he regarded it in the latter
light, it must have been the result either of a terribly
over-strained imagination, or of fraud on the part
of some unknown person. But to suppose that a
man of so much simple holiness and practical wisdom
as Nicolas appears to us, should have taken part in
juggling tricks of such dreadful impiety in order to
persuade his associates that the course he judged
best was prescribed to them by Heaven, is, I confess,
a larger demand upon my powers of credence than
they are able to meet. Moreover, we must judge
these accounts by the age in which they were produced,—
an age when the mental food of the pious
laity was the life of St. Francis with his five wounds
and blasphemous " conformities " to the life of our
Lord, and other works of a similar nature. And it
must be remembered that the leaders of this party
—Nicolas, Rulman, John,—were laymen whose not
VISIONS AND MARVELS 193
large stock of erudition was self-acquired, comparatively
late in life. In the writings of the scholar
Tauler (though, in common with all his contemporaries,
he believes in ghosts and heavenly visions)
we find scarcely a trace of the fanatical credulity
that meets us in the letters of these lay friends of his,
if we are to take their statements as literal and not
symbolical representations of fact. Even so doing,
however, if we compare them with the stories contained
in the staple religious literature of the day, or
even in the life of Suso, Tauler's companion and
friend, Nicolas and his friends, wild as they may seem
to us rational Protestants, will appear scarcely to
leave the regions of sober common sense ; * and it
is remarkable that, in most of the practical questions
that arise with regard to self-discipline, he takes the
moderate and judicious side.
Whatever interpretation, however, we may be
inclined to put upon the marvellous circumstances
attending the above-mentioned conference, it seems
tolerably clear that the three years' so-called seclusion
of the " Friends of God " was regarded by them
as a time of preparation for their public work, when
they should be " scattered abroad over Christendom;
" and that by their retirement, they were
breaking the ties that bound them to those who
had hitherto depended on them for guidance, and
accustoming them to act for themselves against a
time when they should no longer have their wonted
• This will, I think, seem no exaggerated expression to any reader
who will take the pains to consult only Diepenbrock's Life of Suso
(Ratisbon, 1829), with Gorres' Introduction to it, and so see for
himself the space that separates the Romish from our Protestant point
of view in these matters ; not forgetting, meanwhile, that the Editor
Diepenbrock was the secretary of the learned Bishop Sailer, the leader
of the most liberal party among the Catholics of almost our own day.
194 TAULER'S LIFE AND TIMES
counsellors at hand. Probably, too, the brethren
took this course partly from the desire that their
spiritual children should not be involved in the
persecutions which they could not but perceive to
threaten themselves, but might continue to work
for the cause of true religion in their respective
spheres, unhindered by the suspicions of heresy,
which any known connexion with the " Friends of
God " would have brought upon them. Not that
there is any sign of the " Friends of God " having
been heretical in point of dogma ; it was rather the
remarkable freedom with which they criticized the
conduct both of the spiritual and temporal authorities
that was likely to bring them into trouble. Thus,
in one of their meetings just before their retreat, the
brother who had been a Jurist says, that if offices
in Church and State were conferred in accordance
with God's law, neither Urban nor Clement deserved
to be Pope ; the former had been appointed by the
Roman mob through violent means, and the latter
was now defending himself by similar acts of violence,
which was contrary to justice and God's order. So
likewise, the King of Rome had obtained the crown
after a shameful fashion (1376), for his father had
bought the votes of the electors with gold ; how the
electors could reconcile it with their oath to choose
an inexperienced boy for their king, God only knew ;
with the subjects matters did not stand much better :
they obeyed their rulers only so long as it served their
own interests to do so ; a godly life was almost extinct,
everywhere prevailed nought but the striving after
riches and pleasures.* This passage throws much
light on the views and aims of the " Friends of God,"
See Schmidt's Gottesfreunde, S. 170. –
NICOLAS OF BASLE 195
and enables us to form an idea of what must have
been the frequent topics of discussion among them.
With the cessation of the correspondence between
Nicolas and Rulman Merswin, ceases our only source
of information about the " Friends of God." Their
term of waiting expired on the 25th March 1383 ;
and since we know, from contemporary history, that
the course of events, instead of bringing brighter
prospects, grew ever darker and more threatening,
we seem justified in concluding that they now
believed the time to have arrived for them "to go
out into the five ends of the world," and work for
Christ. Most likely they went forth as preachers
of repentance, for there occur in the letters of
Nicolas frequent comparisons of the present state of
the world to that of Nineveh, and hints that they
may have to act the part of Jonah. But where,
and how long they did so, is wrapt in utter darkness.
As far as we can learn, Providence did not see fit
to bless their preaching like that of Jonah, and, to
human eyes, their enterprise was a failure. For all
we actually know respecting their subsequent history
is, that in 1393 a certain Martin von Mayence, a
Benedictine monk of Reichenau, in the diocese of
Constance, who is called in the acts of his trial a
disciple of Nicolas of Basle and a " Friend of God,"
was burnt at Cologne, after the same fate had befallen
some other " Friends of God," a short time before,
at Heidelberg. Active researches were made after
Nicolas, but as he had concealed himself from his
friends, so for a long time he was able to elude the
efforts of his persecutors. At length, on a journey
which he had undertaken into France, in order to
diffuse his doctrines, accompanied by two of his
196 TAULER'S LIFE AND TIMES
disciples, James and John (the latter most likely the
converted Jew who always appears as his bosom
friend), he fell into the hands of the Inquisitors at
Vienne, in the diocese of Poitiers. He was brought
to trial, and persisted firmly and publicly in his
heresies, the most " audacious " of which seems to
have been that he pretended to " know that he was
in Christ, and Christ in him." He was therefore
delivered over to the secular power, and perished
in the flames, together with his two disciples, who
refused to be parted from him.*
Since, in the trial of Martin of Mayence, Nicolas
is spoken of as still living, his death most likely
occurred subsequently to that date, but cannot have
taken place much later, as he must then have been
near ninety years of age. Even before this time,
the Strasburg brethren had lost all trace of the
"Friends of God," and their frequent attempts to
discover them had proved utterly unavailing ;
* The following note, inserted by Schmidt in his Tauler, S. 205,
is, I believe, the only source of information we have respecting the
end of the Layman :
—
" fohan Niederus, formicarhis. Arg. 1517, 4to. F. 40, &c. : Vivebat
paulo ante [the Council of Pisa] quidam purum laicus, Nycholaus
nomine. Hie in linea Rheni circa Basiliam et infra, primum velut
Beghardus ambulans, a multis qui persequebantur hereticos, de eorundem
hereticorum numero quasi unus habebatur suspectissimus. Acutissimus
enim erat, et verbis errores coloratissime velare novit. Idcirco etiam
manus inquisitorum dudum evaserat et multo tempore. Discipulos
igitur quosdam in suam sectam coUegit. Fuit enim professione et
habitu de damnatis Beghardis unus, qui visiones et revelationes in
praedicto damnato habitu multas habuit quas infallibiles esse credidit.
Se scire affirmabat audacter quod Christus in eo esset actu, et ipse in
Christo, et plura alia, quae omnia, captus tandem Wiennae in Pictaviensi
diocesi, inquisitus fatebatur publice. Sed cum Jacobum et Joannem
suspectos in fide, et sibi conscios suos speciales discipulos, ad jussum
ecclesiae eum inquirenti nollet dimittere nisi per ignem, et reportis in
multis a vera fide devius et impersuasibilis, secularium potestati juste
traditus est qui eum incinerarunt.
A detailed account of these attempts is given in Schmidt's
Gottesfreunde, S. 29.
BRETHREN SCATTERED ABROAD 197
no doubt, because the convent which they sought
to find was already deserted, and its inmates, whose
names they had never known, were scattered abroad
in fulfilment of their vocation. That which appears
to have formed the chief ground of their persecution,
was their effort to free the people from the tyranny
of the clergy, and their claiming for every one
enlightened by God the right to teach,—a claim
antagonistic to the inmost essence of the Romish
Church. And if their teaching failed to effect a wide
reformation because it was mingled with some of the
great errors of Rome, and in place of priestly authority
over men's consciences set up that of their brethren,
whose inspiration was often not less doubtful, yet
we cannot but recognize in it the germs of the true
freedom of the Gospel, as well as the great and all essential
truth that the Christian life does not consist
in outward works, but in the inward union of the
spirit with God.
